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85-588: The Twiddler is a chorded keyboard and mouse allowing one to type with a single hand. The first Twiddler was launched in 1992 by the HandyKey Corporation. HandyKey was purchased in 2007 by the Canadian firm Tek Gear. The original Twiddler used a serial port for communication and a PC AT keyboard port for power. This was replaced with USB for the Twiddler 2. The third generation Twiddler,

170-473: A punched card input/output device the resulting punched cards were either data or programs directing the computer's operation. Early Hollerith keypunches were manual devices. Later keypunches were electromechanical devices which combined several functions in one unit. These often resembled small desks with keyboards similar to those on typewriters and were equipped with hoppers for blank cards and stackers for punched cards. Some keypunch models could print, at

255-616: A solenoid which punched the hole. The 80 column punched card format was introduced in 1928. Later Hollerith keypunches included the Type 016 Motor-Driven Electric Duplicating Keypunch (1929), the Type 31 Alphabetical Duplicating Punch (1933), and the Type 32 Alphabetical Printing Punch (1933). "Alphabetical duplicating keypunches recorded alphabetic information in tabulating cards so that complete words and names, together with numerical data, could be later printed by an alphabetical accounting machine. The Type 31 Alphabetical Duplicating Punch

340-426: A 'shift' key to allow both letters and numbers to be produced. With eleven keys in a 3/4/4 arrangement, 43 symbols could be arranged allowing for lowercase text, numbers and a modest number of punctuation symbols to be represented along with a 'shift' function for accessing uppercase letters. While this had the advantage of being usable by untrained users via ' hunt and peck ' typing and requiring one less key switch than

425-481: A 12-key chord keyboard from NewO Company, appeared in 1978 issues of ROM Magazine, an early microcomputer applications magazine. Another early commercial model was the six-button Microwriter , designed by Cy Endfield and Chris Rainey, and first sold in 1980. Microwriting is the system of chord keying and is based on a set of mnemonics. It was designed only for right-handed use. In 1982 the Octima 8 keys cord keyboard

510-452: A = 1, b = 2, c = 3, d = 4, and so on. If the user pressed keys 1 and 2 simultaneously, and then released the keys, 1 and 2 would be added to 3, and since C is the 3rd letter of the alphabet, and the letter "c" appeared. Unlike pressing a chord on a piano, the chord is recognized only after all the keys or mouse buttons are released. Since Engelbart introduced the keyset, several different designs have been developed based on similar concepts. As

595-402: A braille cell. The Perkins Brailler , first manufactured in 1951, uses a 6-key chord keyboard (plus a spacebar) to produce braille output, and has been very successful as a mass market affordable product. Braille, like Baudot, uses a number symbol and a shift symbol, which may be repeated for shift lock, to fit numbers and upper case into the 63 codes that 6 bits offer. After World War II, with

680-453: A chording keyboard to represent sounds: on the standard keyboard, the U represents the sound and word, 'you', and the three-key trigraph KAT represents the sound and word 'cat'. The stenotype keyboard is explicitly ordered: in KAT , K , on the left, is the starting sound. P , S , and T , which are common starting sounds and also common ending sounds, are available on both sides of

765-419: A common electrical/mechanical design in their keyboards to encode the mechanical keystrokes. As a key was depressed, a link on the keystem tripped a corresponding set of bails at the top of the keyboard assembly. The bails in turn made (closed) contacts to encode the characters electrically. As each key stroke was detected by the machine, a feed-back circuit energized a pair of magnets with a bail which restored

850-520: A conventional 12 button keypad, it had the disadvantage that some symbols required three times as much force to depress them as others which made it hard to achieve any speed with the device. That solution is still alive and proposed by Fastap and Unitap among others, and a commercial phone has been produced and promoted in Canada during 2006. Historically, the baudot and braille keyboards were standardized to some extent, but they are unable to replicate

935-530: A crude example, each finger might control one key which corresponds to one bit in a byte , so that using seven keys and seven fingers, one could enter any character in the ASCII set—if the user could remember the binary codes. Due to the small number of keys required, chording is easily adapted from a desktop to mobile environment. Practical devices generally use simpler chords for common characters ( e.g., Baudot ), or may have ways to make it easier to remember

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1020-428: A flat surface. Chording keyboards are also used as portable but two handed input devices for the visually impaired (either combined with a refreshable braille display or vocal synthesis). Such keyboards use a minimum of seven keys, where each key corresponds to an individual braille point, except one key which is used as a spacebar. In some applications, the spacebar is used to produce additional chords which enable

1105-445: A grid. It was designed to be used by untrained operators (who would determine which keys to press by looking at the grid), and was not used where trained telegraph operators were available. The first widespread use of a chord keyboard was in the stenotype machine used by court reporters, which was invented in 1868 and is still in use. The output of the stenotype was originally a phonetic code that had to be transcribed later (usually by

1190-400: A mechanism where an operator pressed one of 12 keys to punch a hole, with the card automatically advancing to the next column. This first-generation Type 001 keypunch used 45 columns and round holes . In 1923 The Tabulating Machine Company introduced the first electric keypunch, the Type 011 Electric Keypunch, a similar looking device where each key closed an electrical contact that activated

1275-501: A mnemonic system that enabled fast and easy touch type learning. Within a few hours the user could achieve a typing speed similar to hand writing speed. The unique design also gave a relief from hand stress (Carpal Tunnel Syndrome) and allowed longer typing sessions than traditional keyboards. It was multi-lingual supporting English, German, French and Hebrew. The BAT is a 7-key hand-sized device from Infogrip, and has been sold since 1985. It provides one key for each finger and three for

1360-402: A punch was facilitated by placing the holes to be used near the edges of the card. Hollerith soon developed a more accurate and simpler to use Keyboard Punch, using a pantograph to link a punch mechanism to a guide pointer that an operator would place over the appropriate mark in a 12 by 20 matrix to line up a manual punch over the correct hole in one of 20 columns. In 1901 Hollerith patented

1445-566: A room also containing 029 keypunch machines, the verifier operators sometimes missed the auditory feedback provided by the loud "thunk" noise emitted by the older 056. Some were known to compensate by hitting the keys harder, sometimes actually wearing out keyboard parts. Introduced with the System/370 in 1971, the IBM 129 was capable of punching, verifying, and use as an auxiliary, on line, 80 column card reader/punch for some computers. A switch on

1530-484: A rotary switch. Unlike earlier keypunch machines, the program cards were read into memory via the regular card-feed path, and were not wrapped around a "program drum". Thanks to its use of electronic memory, the 129 did not have a separate "read station" with a pin-sense unit to enable duplication of data from one card to the next. Instead, duplication was based on the stored image of the previous card. Cards could also be "read-in" through an optical read unit integrated into

1615-415: A second and third try to re-enter the data that was supposed to be in the field. If the third try was incorrect an error notch was put on the top of the card over the column with the error and the "OK" punch at the end of the card was not enabled. The data on the card could actually be correct, since the verifier operator was just as likely to make an error as the keypunch operator. However, with three tries,

1700-513: A single pass, which allowed for corrections instead of wasting a card in case of error. Remington Rand keypunches included: UNIVAC Card Code Punch Type 306-5, 90 Column Alphabetical (Types 306-2, 306-3), 90 Column Numerical (Types 204-2, 204-3), Portable Electric Punch Type 202, Spot Punch Type 301, and the Automatic Verifying Machine Type 313. The Type 306-2 provided for verification; the cards were passed through

1785-412: A small notch punched on the right hand edge. The IBM 056 verifier used most of the same mechanical and electrical components as the 024/026 keypunches with the exception of the punch unit and print head. The punch unit had sensing pins in place of the punches. The holes sensed or not sensed would trip a contact bail when the configuration was other than that entered by the verifier operator. This stopped

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1870-441: A special symbol as a "continuation character" in column 72, and then columns 73-80 could either be punched with a card sequence number or the card could be released at that point, if no further typing was required. Note: "Field Definition" (12) and "Alphabetic Shift" (1) prints as an A . If program 2 codes were punched, invalid characters could be generated that the printer did not know how to print, some of which could even damage

1955-430: Is Edgar Matias' Half-Qwerty keyboard described in patent US 5288158   circa 1992 that produces the letters of the missing half when the user simultaneously presses the space bar along with the mirror key. INTERCHI '93 published a study by Matias, MacKenzie and Buxton showing that people who have already learned to touch-type can quickly recover 50 to 70% of their two-handed typing speed. The loss contributes to

2040-416: Is a chorded keyboard driver for Linux. With a configuration file, any joystick or gamepad can be turned into a chorded keyboard. This design philosophy was decided on to lower the cost of building devices, and in turn lower the entry barrier to becoming familiar with chorded keyboards. Macro keys, and multiple modes are also easily implemented with a user space driver. One minimal chordic keyboard example

2125-429: Is called a keyer . Douglas Engelbart introduced the chorded keyset as a computer interface in 1968 at what is often called " The Mother of All Demos ". Each key is mapped to a number and then can be mapped to a corresponding letter or command. By pressing two or more keys together the user can generate many combinations. In Engelbart's original mapping, he used five keys: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16. The keys were mapped as follows:

2210-492: Is the CharaChorder One, which features a split design with each having access to 9 switches that can be moved in five directions (up, down, left, right, and pressed) in contrast to typical keyboards. This device allows for both chorded entry as well as traditional character entry. The set of words that can be chorded can be dynamically changed by the user in real time, but by default includes the 300 most common words in

2295-595: The Backspace key and re-keyed. The entire 80-column card was punched automatically, as fast as the mechanism could go, when the Release key was pressed. Logic was in SLT modules on a swing out, wire-wrapped backplane. A secondary advantage of the 129 was that the speed of the keying operation was not limited by punching each column at the time of the keystroke. The 129 could store six programs in its memory, selectable by

2380-630: The EBCDIC code. The IBM 029 was mechanically similar to the IBM 026 and printed the punched character on the top of the card using the same kind of mechanism as the 026, although it used a larger code plate with 2240 printing-pin sites due to the larger set of characters in EBCDIC. The 029's logic consisted of wire contact relays on later models and reed relays and diodes on SMS cards for early ones. The more "advanced" reed relays used at first proved to be less reliable than expected, causing IBM to revert to

2465-519: The Skip Bar used in some earlier keypunches. The program was encoded on a punched card and could be prepared on any keypunch (a keypunch would operate even if no program card was in place). The program card was wrapped around the program drum, and clamped in place. The drum rotated as the card being punched moved through the punching mechanism. The holes in the program card were sensed by an array of starwheels that would cause levers to rise and fall as

2550-710: The System/3 family of low-end business computers which featured a new, smaller-sized, 96 column punched card . The IBM 5496 Data Recorder, a keypunch with print and verify functions, and IBM 5486 Card Sorter were made for these 96-column cards. Beginning around 1906, an employee of the United States Census Bureau , James Powers, developed the Powers Keypunch , which was specific to the census application and had 240 keys. In 1911, Powers formed Powers Accounting Machine Company . That company

2635-487: The "feel" other than the correct adjustment of the contacts on the restore bail contacts and the encoding bail contacts. Special function keys such as shift, release, duplication and others, had only electrical contacts under their stems, with no mechanical linkage to the bail assembly for encoding. IBM keypunches such as the 024, 026, and 029 provided for the mounting of a program card that controlled various functions, such as tabbing and automatic duplication of fields from

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2720-403: The 059 much quieter than the 056 (which was often louder than the 024 keypunch). The optical sensors used a single light source, which was distributed to various sites within the machine via fiber-optic lightpipes. Despite the technology, the basic mode of operation remained essentially the same as with the 056. Ironically, not all verifier operators appreciated the noise reduction. When used in

2805-457: The Duplicate key until the error column was reached, typing the correct data for the rest of that card, then pressing the Release key and manually removing the bad card from the output card stacker before it was placed in the deck (this required some practice, but quickly became an automatic action that you no longer had to think about). With the 129, a keystroke error could be erased by pressing

2890-659: The English language. This chorded entry feature allows for potentially extremely fast typing speeds, so much so the founder of the company has been banned from online typing competitions. Additionally, they create the Charachorder Lite with a more traditional keyboard design. The manufacturer claimed that users of the Charachorder One can reach speeds of 300 words per minute, while users of the Charachorder Lite can reach 250 words per minute. The WriteHander,

2975-587: The GKOS keypad driver for Linux as well as the Gkos library for the Atmel/ Arduino open-source board. Plover is a free, open-source, cross-platform program intended to bring real-time stenographic technology not just to stenographers, but also to hobbyists using anything from professional Stenotype machines to low-cost NKRO gaming keyboards. It is available for Linux , Windows , and macOS . Joy2chord

3060-408: The Twiddler 3, natively communicates using USB or Bluetooth and provides haptic feedback through an optionally installed module. The fourth generation, the Twiddler 4, announced in 2024, will use USB-C or Bluetooth , and replaces the Twiddler 3's joystick with an optical trackpad. Chorded keyboard A chorded keyboard minus the board, typically designed to be used while held in the hand,

3145-510: The arrival of electronics for reading chords and looking in tables of "codes", the postal sorting offices started to research chordic solutions to be able to employ people other than trained and expensive typists. In 1954, an important concept was discovered: chordic production is easier to master when the production is done at the release of the keys instead of when they are pressed. Researchers at IBM investigated chord keyboards for both typewriters and computer data entry as early as 1959, with

3230-426: The assembly through a press to cut the card. These essentially manual processes were later replaced by machines. 'Piano machines,' so named for their keys, operated by keyboards and comparable in function to unit record keypunches, became the most common. Herman Hollerith 's first device for punching cards from the 1890s was ...any ordinary ticket punch, cutting a round hole 3/16 of an inch in diameter . Use of such

3315-663: The blind) uses either 6 or 8 tactile 'points' from which all letters and numbers are formed. When Louis Braille invented it, it was produced with a needle holing successively all needed points in a cardboard sheet. In 1892, Frank Haven Hall , superintendent of the Illinois Institute for the Education of the Blind, created the Hall Braille Writer, which was like a typewriter with 6 keys, one for each dot in

3400-477: The boundary of two keys, or at the joining of three keys. Pressing down on one of the dimples would cause either one, two or three of the hexagonal buttons to be depressed at the same time, forming a chord that would be unique to that symbol. With this arrangement, a nine button keyboard with three rows of three hexagonal buttons could be fitted onto a telephone and could produce up to 33 different symbols. By choosing widely separated keys, one could employ one dimple as

3485-402: The chords ( e.g., Microwriter ), but the same principles apply. These portable devices first became popular with the wearable computer movement in the 1980s. Thad Starner from Georgia Institute of Technology and others published numerous studies showing that two-handed chorded text entry was faster and yielded fewer errors than on a QWERTY keyboard. Currently stenotype machines hold

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3570-423: The column in error, then entering the correct data. The duplicating function was accomplished by feeding the card through the punch station without punching it. At the next station sensing pins read the holes present in the original card and transferred the data to the punching station and onto a blank card. Columns with errors were corrected instead of being duplicated. The corrected card was then verified to check

3655-481: The commercial character sets. Logic consisted of diodes , 25L6 vacuum tubes and relays . The tube circuits used 150VDC, but this voltage was only used to operate the punch-clutch magnet . Most other circuits used 48VDC. Characters were printed using a 5 × 7 dot matrix array of wires; the device from which it derived the shape of the character was a metal plate, called the "code plate," with space for 1960 pins (35 pins times 56 printable characters). If

3740-490: The damage, as many people assumed, because the code-plate mechanism remained engaged with the punch unit and shifted the code plate. Turning off printing only suppressed pressing the printing pins into the ribbon and card. Raymond Loewy , industrial designer of "streamlined" motifs who also designed railway passenger cars of the 1930s and 1940s, did the award-winning external design of the 026/024 Card Punches for IBM. Their heavy steel construction and rounded corners indeed echo

3825-550: The data again and be "OK notched". The first combination of card punch and typewriter, permitting selected text to be typed and punched, was developed by the Powers company in 1925. The IBM 824 Typewriter Card Punch was an IBM 024 where the 024 keyboard was replaced by an IBM electric typewriter. Similarly, the IBM 826 used an IBM 026 Keypunch. Introduced with System/360 in 1964, the 029 had new character codes for parentheses, equal and plus as well as other new symbols used in

3910-422: The data or program to enter it directly instead of writing it on forms to be entered by keypunch operators. Jacquard cards were said to be stamped or cut, rather than punched. The first Jacquard cards were stamped by hand, sometimes using a guide plate. An improvement involved placing the card between two perforated metal plates, hinged together, inserting punches according to the desired pattern, and then passing

3995-416: The dot was not to be printed in a given character, the pin was machined off. By correctly positioning the plate and pressing it against one end of the array of printing wires, only the correct wires were pressed against the ribbon and then the punched card. (This printer mechanism was generally considered by IBM Customer Engineers to be difficult to repair. One of the most common problems was wires breaking in

4080-430: The entry paradigm and by the availability of inexpensive CRT computer terminals . Eliminating the step of transferring punched cards to tape or disk (with the added benefit of saving the cost of the cards themselves) allowed for improved checking and correction during the entry process. The development of video display terminals , interactive timeshared systems and, later, personal computers allowed those who originated

4165-407: The forward motion of the card, and presented a red error light on the machine cover. The notching mechanism was located in the area occupied by the print mechanism on a 026 printing keypunch. It had a solenoid which drove the notching mechanism, and another that selected the top notch punch or end of card punch. When an operator keying data to be verified encountered an error, the operator was given

4250-534: The full character set of a modern keyboard. Braille comes closest, as it has been extended to eight bits. The only proposed modern standard, GKOS (or Global Keyboard Open Standard ) can support most characters and functions found on a computer keyboard but has had little commercial development. There is, however, a GKOS keyboard application available for iPhone since May 8, 2010, for Android since October 3, 2010 and for MeeGo Harmattan since October 27, 2011. Stenotype machines, sometimes used by court reporters , use

4335-400: The holes in the program card passed beneath the starwheels, activating electrical contacts. The program was encoded in the top six rows [12,11,0,1,2,3]. If the optional Second Program feature was installed, another program could be encoded in the bottom six rows [4,5,6,7,8,9]. A switch let the operator select which program to use. The central cover on the keypunch could be tilted open toward

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4420-441: The idea that it might be faster than touch-typing if some chords were used to enter whole words or parts of words. A 1975 design by IBM Fellow Nat Rochester had 14 keys that were dimpled on the edges as well as the top, so one finger could press two adjacent keys for additional combinations. Their results were inconclusive, but research continued until at least 1978. Doug Engelbart began experimenting with keysets to use with

4505-420: The industrial Art Deco style. The IBM 056 was the verifier companion to the 024 Card Punch and 026 Printing Card Punch. The verifier was similar to the 026 keypunch except for a red error lens in the machine cover lower center. The verifier operator entered exactly the same data as the keypunch operator and the verifier machine then checked to see if the punched data matched. Successfully verified cards had

4590-417: The keyboard console provided the ability to toggle between the punch and verify modes. The transistorized IBM 129 Card Data Recorder's primary advantage over other IBM keypunches was that it featured an electronic 80-column buffer to hold the card image. When using earlier IBM keypunches, a keystroke error required the card to be ejected by pressing the Release and Register keys, the error corrected by pressing

4675-664: The keyboard: POP is a 3-key chord, using both P keys. Multiple open-source keyer/keyset designs are available, such as the pickey, a PS/2 device based on the PIC microcontroller ; the spiffchorder, a USB device based on the Atmel AVR family of microcontrollers; the FeatherChorder, a BLE chorder based on the Adafruit Feather, an all-in-one board incorporating an Arduino -compatible microcontroller; and

4760-561: The keypunch a second time and keyed again. The verify-punching of the same cards in the same sequence ... results in the elongation of perforations for correct information. Round perforations indicate incorrect information. Complete and rapid detection of errors is performed mechanically by the Automatic Verifying Machine The UNIVAC 1710 Verifying Interpreting Punch was introduced in 1969. Saying that something would be keypunched (to keypunch as

4845-421: The keypunch operator typed a few characters at the beginning of the card and then pressed the skip key, the keypunch would tab to column 10. When a program code of blank is followed by "Field Definition" (12) (or (4) for program 2), it defines a "Numeric Shift" field. In the example above, columns 72-80 are defined in the program as a Numeric Shift field. In practice, this definition would likely be used for punching

4930-419: The keystem mechanically, reset the bails performing the electrical encoding, and gave the "feel" and sound to the operator of a completed action. Each machine had a tendency to develop a "feel" of its own based on several variables such as the amount of wear, dirt, and clearance of the bail contacts within the keyboard, as well as factors in the base machine. The keyboards, however, had no provision for adjusting

5015-561: The mouse and keyset. In the 1970s the funding Engelbart's group received from the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) was cut and many key members of Engelbart's team went to work for Xerox PARC where they continued to experiment with the mouse and keyset. Keychord sets were used at Xerox PARC in the early 1980s, along with mice, GUIs , on the Xerox Star and Alto workstations. A one-button version of

5100-566: The mouse in the mid-1960s. In a famous 1968 demonstration , Engelbart introduced a computer human interface that included the QWERTY keyboard, a three button mouse , and a five key keyset. Engelbart used the keyset with his left hand and the mouse with his right to type text and enter commands. The mouse buttons marked selections and confirmed or aborted commands. Users in Engelbart's Augmentation Research Center at SRI became proficient with

5185-471: The mouse was incorporated into the Apple Macintosh but Steve Jobs decided against incorporating the chorded keyset. In the early 1980s, Philips Research labs at Redhill, Surrey did a brief study into small, cheap keyboards for entering text on a telephone. One solution used a grid of hexagonal keys with symbols inscribed into dimples in the keys that were either in the center of a key, across

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5270-412: The number of keys is low, the button areas can be made bigger and easier to hit on the small screen. The most common letters do not necessarily require chording as is the case with the GKOS keyboard optimised layouts (Android app) where the twelve most frequent characters only require single keys. The company CharaChorder commercially sells chorded entry devices. Their first commercially available device

5355-417: The older-style wire-contact relay-based design. All ran on 48 volts DC, and did not require the vacuum tubes that were used in the 024/026. A common additional feature made available (at additional cost) was the leading zeros feature (termed "Left-Zero"). This was delivered by an additional set of four SMS cards. The field was programmed for leading zeros using the program card. If it was (say) a six digit field,

5440-478: The operator and a locking lever released, allowing the program drum to be removed and replaced. The program card was punched with characters that controlled its function as follows: Many programming languages, such as FORTRAN , RPG , and the IBM Assembler , coded operations in specific card columns, such as 1, 10, 16, 36, and 72. The program card for such a setup might be coded as: In this example, if

5525-481: The operator only had to key in the actual value (for example 73). The feature would then fill the field by punching the leading four zeros, followed by the 73, in effect right justifying the field, thus: 000073. The IBM 5924 Key Punch was the 029 model T01 attached with a special keyboard in IBM's 1971 announcement of the IBM Kanji System , the keypunch operator's left hand selecting one of 15 shift keys and

5610-412: The operator was less likely to repeatedly make the same error. Some verifier operators were able to guess the error on the card created by the previous keypunch operator, defeating the purpose of the verify procedure, and thus some machines were altered to allow only one entry and error notched on the second try. Cards with error notches were re-punched (using an 024 or 026) usually by "duplicating" up to

5695-459: The previous card. The later 129 used electronic circuit cards to store simple programs written by the keypunch operator. The IBM 024 Card Punch and IBM 026 Printing Card Punch were announced in 1949. They were almost identical, with the exception of the printing mechanism. The heart of the 024 and 026 keypunches was a set of twelve precision punches, one per card row, each with an actuator of relatively high power. Punch cards were stepped across

5780-399: The printer. Program cards could automate certain tasks, such as "gang punching", the insertion of a constant field into each card of a deck of cards. For amusement, program cards could even be set up to play music by gang-punching "noisy" characters (characters represented by many holes, usually special characters) and "quiet" numbers and letters in rhythmic patterns. In 1969, IBM introduced

5865-491: The punch one column at a time, and the appropriate punches were activated to create the holes, resulting in a distinctive "chunk, chunk" sound as columns were punched. Both machines could process 51-, 60-, 66-, and 80-column cards. The 026 could print the punched character above each column. By 1964 there were ten versions with slightly different character sets. The scientific versions printed parentheses, equal sign and plus sign in place of four less frequently used characters in

5950-441: The punch station. IBM 024, 026, and 029 keypunches and their companion verifiers, the 056 and 059, could be programmed to a limited extent using a Program Card , also known as a drum card. The keypunch or verifier could be programmed to automatically advance to the beginning of each field, default to certain character types within the field, duplicate a field from the previous card, and so on. Program cards were an improvement over

6035-430: The record for fastest word entry. Many stenotype users can reach 300 words per minute. However, stenographers typically train for three years before reaching professional levels of speed and accuracy. The earliest known chord keyboard was part of the "five-needle" telegraph operator station, designed by Wheatstone and Cooke in 1836, in which any two of the five needles could point left or right to indicate letters on

6120-502: The right hand selecting one of 240 Kanji characters for that shift. It introduced the computer processing of Chinese , Japanese and Korean languages that typically used large character sets over 10,000 characters. The IBM 059 was the Verifier companion to the IBM 029 Card Punch. In design, it differed radically from the earlier 056 verifier, in that it used optical sensing of card holes instead of mechanical sensing pins. This made

6205-522: The same operator who produced the original output), rather than arbitrary text—automatic conversion software is now commonplace. In 1874, the five-bit Baudot telegraph code and a matching 5-key chord keyboard was designed to be used with the operator forming the codes manually. The code is optimized for speed and low wear: chords were chosen so that the most common characters used the simplest chords. But telegraph operators were already using typewriters with QWERTY keyboards to "copy" received messages, and at

6290-426: The speed discussion above. It is implemented on two popular mobile phones, each provided with software disambiguation, which allows users to avoid using the space-bar. "Multiambic" keyers for use with wearable computers were invented in Canada in the 1970s. Multiambic keyers are similar to chording keyboards but without the board, in that the keys are grouped in a cluster for being handheld, rather than for sitting on

6375-409: The thumb. It is proposed for the hand which does not hold the mouse, in an exact continuation of Engelbart's vision. Keypunch A keypunch is a device for precisely punching holes into stiff paper cards at specific locations as determined by keys struck by a human operator. Other devices included here for that same function include the gang punch, the pantograph punch, and the stamp. The term

6460-468: The tightly curved narrow tube between the code plate and the ribbon—extracting the fragments and replacing the bundle of 35 wires was very tedious). The printing mechanism was prone to be damaged if a user attempted to duplicate "binary" cards with non-standard punch patterns. These could cause the code-plate positioning mechanism to try to shift the plate beyond its intended range of motion, sometimes causing damage. Turning off printing did not actually prevent

6545-484: The time it made more sense to build a typewriter that could generate the codes automatically, rather than making them learn to use a new input device. Some early keypunch machines used a keyboard with 12 labeled keys to punch the correct holes in paper cards. The numbers 0 through 9 were represented by one punch; 26 letters were represented by combinations of two punches, and symbols were represented by combinations of two or three punches. Braille (a writing system for

6630-439: The top of a column, the character represented by the hole(s) punched in that column. The small pieces punched out by a keypunch fell into a chad box , or (at IBM ) chip box , or bit bucket . In many data processing applications, the punched cards were verified by keying exactly the same data a second time, checking to see if the second keying and the punched data were the same (known as two pass verification ). There

6715-497: The user to issue editing commands, such as moving the cursor , or deleting words. Note that the number of points used in braille computing is not 6, but 8, as this allows the user, among other things, to distinguish between small and capital letters, as well as identify the position of the cursor. As a result, most newer chorded keyboards for braille input include at least nine keys. Touch screen chordic keyboards are available to smartphone users as an optional way of entering text. As

6800-513: Was a great demand for keypunch operators , usually women, who worked full-time on keypunch and verifier machines, often in large keypunch departments with dozens or hundreds of other operators, all performing data input . In the 1950s, Remington Rand introduced the UNITYPER , which enabled data entry directly to magnetic tape for UNIVAC systems. Mohawk Data Sciences subsequently produced an improved magnetic tape encoder in 1965, which

6885-453: Was also used for similar machines used by humans to transcribe data onto punched tape media. For Jacquard looms , the resulting punched cards were joined together to form a paper tape, called a "chain", containing a program that, when read by a loom, directed its operation. For Hollerith machines and other unit record machines the resulting punched cards contained data to be processed by those machines. For computers equipped with

6970-495: Was introduced by IBM in 1933, and it automatically ejected one card and fed another in 0.65 second. These machines were equipped with separate alphabetical and numerical keyboards. The alphabetical keyboard was similar to a conventional manual typewriter except that the shift, tab, backspace and character keys were eliminated, and a skip, release, stacker and '1' key were provided." – IBM Archives (manufactured by British ICT ) (1960s) Most IBM keypunch and verifiers used

7055-569: Was presented by Ergoplic Kebords Ltd an Israeli Startup that was founded by Israeli researcher with intensive experience in Man Machine Interface design. The keyboard had 8 keys one for each finger and additional 3 keys that enabled the production of numbers, punctuations and control functions. The keyboard was fully compatible with the IBM PC and AT keyboards and had an Apple IIe version as well. Its key combinations were based on

7140-408: Was somewhat successfully marketed as a keypunch replacement. The rise of microprocessors and inexpensive computer terminals led to the development of additional key-to-tape and key-to-disk systems from smaller companies such as Inforex and Pertec . Keypunches and punched cards were still commonly used for both data and program entry through the 1970s but were rapidly made obsolete by changes in

7225-453: Was taken over by Remington Rand in 1927. Remington Rand's UNIVAC division made keypunches for their 90-column cards and similar machines for the IBM 80-column card. Their 90-column keypunches used a mechanical system developed by Remington Rand to avoid IBM patent issues (long before the acquisition of Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation ). UNIVAC keypunches stored the sequence of characters for an entire card, then punched all its holes in

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